


A Show of Fire and Lightning

by sambharsobs



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Period-Typical Racism, Relationship Study, listen intsys gave me nothing on brigid so i made it up bc im not a coward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25734661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sambharsobs/pseuds/sambharsobs
Summary: Contrary to what she thought, her flame did not flicker out on that terrible day. Petra grew to understand her position here better – bleak, but not permanent, not if she has anything to do with it. Fodlan is a strange country with strange customs, but that matters not. She must right the wrongs of her father, and hold Brigid up as an equal.Petra is aware of Fodlan's delicate sensibilities, but nothing prepares her for Dorothea Arnault.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Petra Macneary
Comments: 6
Kudos: 92





	A Show of Fire and Lightning

i.

The evening before everything fell apart, Petra watched a play.

When the cloaked narrator stands before the crackling flames curling into a cool sky, hands spread apart, a shiver of anticipation runs through the crowd.

“Welcome, my esteemed guests,” she says. Petra stifles a giggle, it was Aiden’s mother. “We have a show for you today, a tale of war and victory, of passion and preservation, of the Flame Spirit.”

Petra cheered along with her friends, gathered in the front row, right at the narrator’s feet and the warmth of the fire. Aiden’s mother swoops low to them, and makes eye-contact with her son, who giggles delightedly.

“What do you know about the Flame Spirit, child?”

“Spirit of strength!” laughs Aiden. “Winner of wars!”

“You are correct, little one. But what if I told you…” and Aiden’s mother holds the silence she commands with a secretive happiness, “that the Flame Spirit was once defeated?”

Petra gasps, and Ciara cries, “No!”

The narrator turns to her friend, and whispers, loud, “Defeated in battle.”

A collective shudder runs through the crowd, starting with Petra and rippling behind. She moves closer to Ciara, and the narrator’s gaze snaps to her. Petra meets familiar brown eyes. “Would you like to hear the story?”

Petra hesitates, suddenly shy, and then nods.

Pulling herself up to her full height, yawning over them full of hidden stories, the narrator looks towards the clouds in the sky, and says, “O Spirits, the people have asked to hear your story. Allow us to share a story, through our mortal flesh. A story, of defeat and love and peace. Permit us, for a short while, to assume your forms.”

A hiss, and the bonfire rages to life, roaring tendrils of orange and red thrashing writhing through the blue and purple chill. Now with the spirit’s blessings, the narrator eggs the crowd to sing a prayer praising the Flame Spirit’s strength.

Petra sings, the fire’s warmth tickling her cheeks, and the narrator shushes them two paragraphs in. The story is going to begin, so she scurries away, darting behind the bonfire, and two figures emerge – the Flame Spirit and the Earth Spirit.

The two old friends talk of an undefeatable sorcerer on the edge of the archipelago, and the Flame Spirit, arrogant in his strength, scoffs and departs to seize victory. But he is bested, and trapped in a magical cage. With nobody to help him, his flames wither away.

But then the Water Spirit – beautiful and provocative, Petra hides a blush – slips close to the cell, and accosts him on his arrogance. Her voice, mellifluous as the river’s bend, chides him, and tells him of the root of his pride – his power. Now is the time for him to be arrogant again, she says, to save the people of Brigid.

As the Flame Spirit rises to his feet, the bonfire behind his silhouette begins to crackle again with a simmering intensity, and when he tears apart the bars, the flames roar along with his voice, proud, proud, proud.

There’s a crackle of thunder then.

A fearful dread seizes the gathering. The spell is broken, anxious murmurs dancing across the crowd and shock dancing across the actor’s faces. The elders say that the Thunder Spirit is a harbinger of terrible grief.

But then the beast crumples onto the ground, and Petra joins the crowd and the flames in a raging, thunderous cheer. The narrator begins to sing the song from before again, and the Spirits break through the audience, pulling them closer to the fire.

Petra lets herself be pulled to her feet by the Water Spirit, and wishes Papa was here, as they dance around the bonfire, warm and proud. He would see Aiden stumbling and Ciara singing and smile one of his rare smiles, stoic features lightening for a few happy moments.

But Papa never smiles after that evening.

It happens too quickly for Petra to comprehend immediately. Grandfather returns the next day, flanked by men wearing metal from head to toe, and she is thrown into their strange vessel. She understands only later that afternoon, when the scar on Grandfather’s cheek slumps, and she runs away, tears streaming down her cheeks.

The people on the other side are deathly pale, with ghoulish features and ashen faces. The words slither out of their lips, sharp as a hundred daggers against her ears. They move with the stiffness of corpses and wear garments in the colour of blood.

When she had misbehaved once, an elder had warned Petra that her actions would take her to the World of the Undead, where zombies and blood-suckers hunted through cold streets and quiet lanes for the flesh of the living. As Petra walks through the halls of a large building with barren walls and grey stone, she wonders if Papa would be here.

The Ruler of the Undead is terrifying on his throne, with sunken cheeks and lightless eyes, and Petra hides behind Grandfathers legs. He rasps sharp, slithering words to Grandfather, who drops to his knees, and Petra is pushed down to kneel.

Grandfather turns to her, tears in his eyes, and says, “You will stay here with these people, Petra.”

Fear seizes Petra’s heart, and she cries, “I don’t want to stay with the dead! Please, Grandfather, I won’t ever climb the grain house again, I promi—”

“Hush, little one,” says Grandfather, petting her head. “This is not your fault.”

“Grandfather, please, don’t leave me—”

He presses his lips against her forehead, and breathes, “Never stop being proud.”

And then Grandfather turns to leave. Petra’s screams fill the dungeon, darting after him. Two pale arms grab her, and she scratches and bites and cries, but the door close after Grandfather and she is dragged away.

Her cell has blood-red tapestries and only one candle. Mama is gone. Petra pounds against the door, sobbing apologies and crying for Grandfather, but nothing happens. Papa is gone. Her voice goes hoarse, and she collapses onto the ground, silent heaves convulsing through her body. Grandfather left her.

Petra’s flame flickers out with the candle.

ii.

Petra is a hunter, and so she knows when she is being watched.

There are eyes on her all through the Imperial Palace, cold, calculating eyes on the warm, open beaches of Brigid. Petra is the physical proof of the lies they read in the libraries she loves to visit, and she cannot falter, she cannot give them anything to use against her people.

Contrary to what she thought, her flame did not flicker out on that terrible day. She grew to understand her position here better – bleak, but not permanent, not if she has anything to do with it. Fodlan is a strange country with strange customs, but that matters not. Petra must right the wrongs of her father, and hold Brigid up as an equal.

But she began speaking longer sentences, she began to understand that spoken to her. Petra remembers the nobles remarking on her agility and stealth, and thinks that Fodlan words are spoken too close to the teeth, where sharp edges and slithering lips command the syllables. Brigid is spoken from deep within the mouth, closer to the heart.

Petra misses Brigid with a wide, yawning ache. It throbs when the moon aligns with a friend's birthday, and settles deep in her bones when she a lantern flicker and thinks of a raging bonfire.

But the Flame Spirit was never vanquished, she reminds herself, even when he was imprisoned. They go to pray to the Flame Shrine every fortnight, musicians commanding drums and dancers scaling across…

...Petra doesn't remember what colour the shrine's floors are. She should ask Grandfather in her next letter. The next response will have the answer, woven between apologies and reminders of her duty.

It is a relief then, when Duke Gerth tells her she will be attending the Garreg Mach Academy with Edelgard and Hubert.

Children are easier than adults. Adults, with their layered sentences and malicious eyes, their minds playing a game that Petra loses before she understands. Children see the world as themselves and others, but are always willing to play. Children are like Edelgard, Hubert and herself, but not like them at all.

There are things that can be done, when a noble turns his nose up at her and calls her a savage. She can temper the flames in her chest, coaxing it into a gentle flame that fits within a glass cage, and tell them of Brigid's centuries-old traditions, calmly.

Petra is aware of Fodlan's delicate sensibilities, but nothing prepares her for Dorothea Arnault.

While her pride flickers and spits within her chest, Dorothea's explodes out of her with a crackle and a flash, a sharp sting of lightning, blinding and dazzling.

When verbal barbs are thrown at her, Petra is used to holding them up to her flame, melting sharp points into a smooth ball that she can roll back to the offender, a peace offering between children. Dorothea – beautiful and provocative, Petra has to hide a blush – shatters the offender with the thunder of her words and charge in her frown. There is a shuddering moment of silence after lighting strikes, where Dorothea crackles with hurt and injustice, before the world dips back into chaos, and Petra can only watch.

Watch, as she zig-zags through the same cloudy skies, seeking for a place to earth herself where she can let the sparks fizzle out and the embers blaze upwards. Watch, as Dorothea sways through the current of words and hands, stinging those too mocking and too rough. Watch, as the curve of her smile smarts across Petra’s cheeks, when she calls her the prefect princess.

She wishes she can let the flames blaze and raze out of her, righteous and demanding, just like Dorothea.

But Petra knows better, so she guides herself to a flicker when Linhardt watches her study with high eyebrows and an amused smile. She tempers herself when Felix spits out a backhanded compliment in the training grounds. Petra begs the pyre in her chest to soften, when Caspar speaks to her with downcast shoulders and sorrowful eyebrows.

It is for her people, she reminds herself, no matter how desperately the flames in her lantern lick and press against a glass cage.

iii.

"Have you been to the opera, Petra?"

They are sprawled on Dorothea's bedroom floor, books on swordplay and reason magic scattered before them. Petra can say with confidence that she knows how to wield the former, but the latter is firmly Dorothea’s speciality. Both of them, however, lack faith.

"I have not."

Dorothea sighs dramatically, and says with a wink, "A shame. One of these days, I'll put on a show for you."

Petra smiles and thanks her, but thinks that she doesn't need to go to the opera to watch Dorothea act.

Dancers in Brigid walk with a fluidity in their steps even when they aren't on stage, but Dorothea is different, because it is conscious. There is a costume and a script, and Petra has seen the brunette cycle through it many times now.

On the stage at Enbarr, Dorothea might have been a wonderful actress, but here, she is a novice, Petra thinks, too eager and exaggerated in her emotions and actions. Aggrandised quivering of lashes and overplayed high-pitched laughter aside, Dorothea breaks character too easily when challenged, crashing the show for both her audience and herself.

Petra knows because she is an actor too, just as bad as Dorothea.

Where Dorothea demands and battles for attention, Petra slips into the shadows and away from the spotlight. She is proud, indeed, but she cannot be too proud, lest her audience begins to resent her. Petra can tell Fodlaners of Brigid’s dances, but not how the dancers twirl and stomp until blood flows into the earth as a sacrifice. Petra is all too aware of how delicate the Fodlan sensibility is.

Both her and Dorothea's fates are in the hands of their audiences, similarly dressed in stuffy shirts and fitted trousers.

Her charade never ends, not for her own survival, but for her people's, but she had wondered when Dorothea's ended, for every actor must slip away to rest. Petra had thought that Dorothea acted around her, even within the walls of this room. She is not the money that Dorothea wishes to wed, and she cannot falter lest she would doom her people, and yet…

Yet Dorothea kindles the flame within her with attentive eyes and genuine questions, sweet sentiments and gentle smiles. Dorothea's own sparks settle as a charge in her heart, and Petra is warm, for the first time in many years.

"We are having...something similar, in Brigid."

"Oh?" Green eyes regard her with interest. "Do tell. Is there singing?"

"Yes, there is much singing, and much acting as well." Petra hesitates, just for a moment. "We are singing to the Spirits during our performances."

"The Spirits?"

"We--" it is dangerous, she knows it is dangerous, to trust a Fodlaner with too much of herself, or her people, the Lightning Spirit is a sign of great sorrow, and yet she wants to burn, proudly, "--we are not having one Goddess, but many Spirits that are guiding us."

"Oh," breathes Dorothea.

Petra holds her breath, frightened and flaring all at once.

A unpracticed, unattractive snort, and Dorothea says, "Good idea. We place way too much on one Goddess that does too little, if you ask me."

Something pulses through her chest, and they giggle, conspiratorially. Dorothea had called them irritators, of the nobles and the clergy, and Petra had called her a friend, drinking tea and comparing notes.

Petra is neither a princess nor a prisoner on Dorothea's rug, and she is warm, so very warm.

iv.

Fodlan is plunged into war, and Brigid joins the Empire.

In just a few days, everything changed. The Empire’s nobles are dethroned as soon as Edelgard ascends hers, and Duke Gerth goes from sneering at her skin to snivelling at her feet. Brigid becomes a valued ally to the Empire, and Petra goes back home, after five long years.

The Flame Shrine has brown terracotta floors, rough and firm, for dancers to sweep across.

During battle, Petra rages and roars with her battalion, smiting her enemies with ease. Her chest burns when the Fodlaners see her people prove their mettle without their assistance, their impressed smirks in the barracks stoking the rush in her heart.

“This is being the traditional fighting style of Brigid,” she tells the knights, arrogantly, when they ask, and Petra can do little to quell the wildfire in her soul when she sees her people spar with them.

Power is a heady, intoxicating thing, and she knows that the Flame Spirit was imprisoned for his imperiousness, but she has been too cold for too long. Petra is aware that fires blur the sky above it, and she cannot let the mirage deceive her from her purpose – she must survive this war as a victor to free her people from the chains they are in. But it is too easy to be consumed by the flames.

As Petra tries to quell a flame that catches easily onto the oils of war, she sees Dorothea’s spark withers and flickers out.

Hidden within the dark cloud of her misery, it lashes out during battle, but Petra knows it is temporary, flickering away just as quickly as it is strikes. The white-hot magic at her fingertips is replaced with the calming while glow of healing magic, trying to mend the rips caused by lightning.

There is little Petra can say in Fodlanese to alleviate her pain, so she offers the glowing coals of her culture as a source of warmth, and lets Dorothea braid her hair, for hours, for as long as Dorothea needs.

Petra knows that the crackle of goosebumps following Dorothea’s fingers along her scalp is inappropriate. Petra knows that the heat spreading across face when she holds Dorothea through the night is reckless. And Petra knows that the fiery fury with which she protects Dorothea on the battlefield is short-sighted.

But the flames in her heart are hungry, drunk on pride and desperate with need.

It is when Byleth returns to them and the tides of the war are finally in their favour does she offer the only solution she knows. No actor can thrive before a stingy audience, too concerned with the quality of silk hanging off the actor’s body to deliver a suitable reaction. Petra’s people have always appreciated the arts, never shy with thunderous applause.

Petra asks her to come with her Brigid, to see the people and the sights and the culture and the warmth, or so she says. What Petra means, through the inadequate words of the Fodlaners, is that she wants Dorothea to see _her_ , as she is, and not in costume, and perhaps then, Dorothea will shed her own. But Petra says none of this.

After all, Fodlanese is spoken closer to the teeth, and she can speak from her heart once they are in Brigid. Until then, she must keep her raging passion in check.

v.

It takes them a long time to stop acting.

When Dorothea met the distrustful eyes of the Brigid people, she calls back the sparkle in her eyes and crackle in her words, fingertips singeing. When Petra met the judgemental eyes of the Fodlanese nobility, she calls back the cowering, timid embers or the untameable, razing flames that destroyed her, lips burning.

Petra had whispered that she loves Dorothea the moment they had landed on the shores of Brigid, and kept whispering the words until Dorothea understood them, and still, even after Dorothea could say them back in Brigid. Yet it took them long to stop acting around each other too – Dorothea ceased arching her back and cooing Petra’s name, the way the they had demanded, and Petra ceased to wear her robes and responsibilities all the time, the way they had demanded.

It becomes difficult to temper herself, when the nobles who visit search for something to condemn. It becomes difficult for Dorothea to glow again, when she hears of the ill omens of the Lighting Spirit. Old habits die hard, and Petra cannot yank herself away from what she conditioned herself to do to survive, and neither can Dorothea.

But the stage has changed, as has their roles.

Petra writes her script after a life of following someone else’s, and Dorothea conducts her people to show them off as their best and boldest. The people of Brigid welcome her, and the Fodlaners welcome her. They work seamlessly together, fusing and melding, until their blinding light hides the audience, and they do not need the stage anymore. They can just _be_.

It has been many years since the war, and Dorothea lies with her as her wife now. Little lightning-shaped stretch marks embrace her swollen stomach, and the old ladies are fussing and doting on her to sit down, to rest, to take it easy. The evening chill across the beach does not affect Petra, not when she is warm, so very warm.

“I will be fine,” giggles Dorothea at Aiden’s mother’s frown.

Loudly, so that Dorothea can hear that she is upset with her, Aiden’s mother tells Petra, “Our queen thinks that because she won a war, she can be prideful about these matters.”

Petra meets twinkling green eyes, and says, “She has much to be proud of.”

Dorothea laughs, and Petra’s heart surges with the bonfire before them. Ciara catches Dorothea’s eye, and gestures to her rapidly. Dorothea slides through the audience, and slips into the cloak Ciara holds out for her.

When Dorothea stands before the cracking flames curling into the cool sky, hands spread apart, everybody hushes, and a shiver of anticipation runs through the crowd.

“Welcome, my esteemed guests,” begins Dorothea, and Petra cannot hide her smile. “We have a show for you today, a tale of war and victory, of passion and preservation—”

**Author's Note:**

> maybe now ill stop thinking about them, i say, like a liar


End file.
